13 Ways of Writing Really Bad Poetry

1) Citing the canon - well, Wordsworth to Auden,
write in rhyming stanzas only.
Even if the rhyme makes no sense, a flawed one
is better than free verse, which is all baloney.

And if sentences you your must go mangle,
or your meter's corrupto, as if by maleficience buggered,
you'd still rather your reader were left to untangle
something you feel is more formally rugged.

2) Use my voice. I am the victim
of some horrific situation you've read about.
You've never met me,
you know nothing about me,
but for some reason
you think impersonating me makes for moving stuff.
Why? I ask, eyes wet with bitter tears.
Why not ask other rhetorical questions?

3) Or be me! I am someone you dislike,
and whose wrongdoings you wish to make plain,
so you adopt a voice of grave arrogance
and have me proudly list my crimes,
flaunt my moral indifference!
Stop just short of an evil laugh -
I may be a cad,
but I'm also cunning, otherwise
it wouldn't be very insightful to rat me out.

4) In fact, you can write about any opinion
you may vaguely hold.
Everyone knows
that cutting it into
lines will
raise it to the level
of art,

5) while adopting a rap style's
a great way to speed-dial
'edgy' and 'modern'
and practically sodden
with wit and panache.
It's a little bit flash, full of fury,
not shit, crap or gash, no sirree,
to let fly such a flurry of slurry.

6) Write haiku using
the five-seven-five method.
Who needs a season?

7) Joyfully sing of creativity,
its boundless wonders and enchantments!
Oh! And how wonderful all true art is,
how it climbs the soul's many escarpments.

8) Concentrate on emotion.
That's what poetry's all about, right?
Expressing that deep, long, endless,
absolute pain with redundant adjectives.
If you stress them, it might mean something.
Something deep as infinity,
dark as blindness,
hollow as your torn heart,
deep as your sorrow,
black as the universe
and deep as a really deep cave
that goes on forever, like death's endless dream.

9) Nature is an easy-win.
The sky is always profound in some way.
You might keenly observe
the rustling of mice in autumn leaves
or the scrabbling of playful squirrels
while you walk the dog,
feeling terribly reflective.

10) Miss words.
Say little.
Describe a thought.
Or question?
Verbalise. Verbalise.

End on image.
Roses swaying.

11) A summer regatta in Cambridge,
or some other event,
you and me, the guys, that dog,
those other things,
and the conversation we had,
which established the complications
of our relationship.

You seem oddly distant, you said, in italics.
Hold on, I replied. I'm just going to describe
some other largely irrelevant details.

The spoons with jam on them,
your shirt, undone as always,
a plate of some slightly posh food,
and the seconds that passed
between our hungry lips.

You asking, Why did you do that?
Me not answering, allowing
the reader to assume
this is heavy stuff,
while the waves or the wind
do something mundane.

12) So, reader,
you address a person directly.
Maybe a politician? - I don't know.
Ask them if they really think
you're going to take this lying down.
Well, do they? The more topical,
the better. The more incredulous,
yet second-hand your outrage,
the better. Ask them:
what are they planning to do now, eh?

13) If you can parody another poem,
and in doing so, seem to be having fun,
even if it's atrociously done,
then you'll be a poet, my son.